Ban Blair-Baiting

Bear-baiting, whereby a tethered bear was attacked by a pack of dogs, was outlawed in this country in 1835. It is now time to stop BLAIR-baiting, i.e. attacks on our former Prime Minister by the dogs of anti-war. Less metaphorically it can be defined as the constant incitement of hatred against Tony Blair for taking us to war in Iraq.

This year's Blair-baiting season will reach its peak when the Iraq war inquiry starts to call witnesses. Parts of the media, the anti-Iraq war lobby and some families of soldiers killed in the war are already calling for this to be a TRIAL of Tony Blair with a view to gathering as much evidence as possible to send him to The Hague for "war crimes". Except that unlike a normal trial, Tony Blair has been presumed guilty in advance.

The organisers of this petition do not belong to any one party but are united in our belief in "innocent until proved guilty" and that Mr Blair should be given a fair hearing at the inquiry. To this end we demand that if the Blair-baiters want to turn the inquiry into a trial they should follow the same rules as a trial and not be allowed to make any public comment on the proceedings until they are over.

Please show your support for Tony Blair through this period of "trial" by signing this petition.

[UPDATE] Your signature is all the more important at this time as the Inquiry will be presenting its findings in the autumn which means that the issue will be becoming highly topical again. Go to our campaign website ( linked at the top left of this page) for the latest developments.

If you would like to be more actively involved in the campaign associated with it could you please leave your contact details in the "contact author" box that accompanies this petition.

We, the undersigned agree that Blair-baiting should NOT be allowed to prejudice the outcome of the Iraq war inquiry. We therefore call upon the media and other interested parties to refrain from such activity for the duration of the inquiry.